I have always been shocked by how common it seems to be for people to watch things like „knockout compilations“, beheadings etc.
In my school, we had a group of 4 kids that showed such content to everyone at the age of like 14. At this age it may be excused by edgy teenage behavior, but it’s not just them. There are many people that watch some of the most gruesome acts imaginable for their own „entertainment“. This is how they choose to spend their time.
How can this be? What psychological phenomena are behind this? I was never able to understand this
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The human brain is a threat-detection and threat-evaluation machine, and it’s not great at telling real from fake. Feeding it frightening or disturbing things tells it that those are genuine important threats to your life, and it starts trying to gather as much information as it can to keep you alive.
So when someone sees a video of a beheading, their brain might well conclude that there’s a beheader nearby. Then it says “well, let me learn about beheaders so I can avoid them,” and starts looking for more information. This translates into a fascination with beheadings, easily fed in the internet age.
4 reasons (and possibly more)
1) shock – In today’s day and age our brain can predict a lot of things. Shock we get from watching someone get killed is something exciting and unique. It can trigger same senses as watching horror for example.
2) sadistic tendency – some people want to watch people suffer or maybe they want to harm people themselves, but don’t do so… Watching gore can satisfy the need (or create lust)
3) risk avoiding – our caveman brains are trained by evolution to avoid danger – so we can survive and pass our genes… Watching people getting killed can serve as “don’t do these stupid dangerous things” and our brain rewards that
4) it’s something “forbidden” by society… And forbidden fruit tastes the best
I listened to a Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) on Torture.
Something that stands out strongly is that for much of civilised history it has been a form of entertainment for the populace as well as a stick to discourage certain behaviours.
People watched the gladiatorial games like Americans watch superbowl, they watched drawing and quartering like European football and they watched beheading right up into the 2nd half of the 20th century like we watch horror films.
It seems like its partially disassociated entertainment (you are no longer one of us once you have transgressed so badly and seeing you trampled is like watching Nature channel), partly escapism from mundane lives, partly a party (there was often picnics and almost always drinking), and as another comment notes, basal sadism comes into it too.
If you are an audio person and have a stomach for it, the episode I mentioned above really is very illuminating,if frightful!
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